hellbender said:
My netiquette is nonsense still stands, actually, for the very reasons that you mention.
Hm. Maybe we disagree on what "netiquette" is, for I disagree, and here's my reasoning...
Good "netiquette" is simply the etiquette of relations in a text only (and frequently slow turn-around time) medium.
You say you like to treat people as if you're in a room together. That's a form of etiquette - a set of rules of behavior where some things are appropriate, and some things aren't. It's also a good first approximation on how to behave.
But, let's face it, you
aren't in a room with people. You don't get to hear vocal inflections, or see body language, so there's information you aren't getting. In real conversation, folks tend to speak a couple of sentences, and then look for feedback. In a text-only message board, folks will instead tend to carry on for many paragraphs. The end result of these being that you know far less about when you're cheesing someone else off, and have fewer opportunities to correct the situation.
On top of that, you have the anonymity factor already raised.
So, the situation isn't quite the same, and so it does call for different rules of behavior. That's all "netiquette" is (or should be) - slightly modified face-to-face etiquette.
So, is revealing who's on your ignore list rude? Well, would walking into a room at a party and declaring loudly, "I am not on speaking terms with the following people...!" be rude? Probably yes
Now, to engage in topic drift for a moment, I've a pet netiquette peeve. People assume that the burden of netiquette is on the speaker. If you say something that cheeses me off, it's your fault, and I'm under no burden to try to avoid it myself.
But communication is a two way street. There's a speaker, and a listener. Too many folk, upon hearing something they don't like, choose to get upset before asking for clarifications. Since the speaker cannot read the audience well, it is important for the audience to give feedback, and for the speaker to accept that feedback as it's intended - as a replacement for information that he'd get in a normal conversation.
Okay, enough drifting...